Camas Cheese Co. offers cut-to-order cheeses

A new downtown Camas business is on a mission to expand palates.

“Our mission is to curate an exceptional selection of cheeses, providing a unique and delightful experience that invites everyone to try something new,” Camas Cheese Co. owners Andy and Tiffany Regan stated in an online introduction to their specialty cheese shop, located on Northeast Fourth Avenue in Camas’ historic downtown.

“Our tagline is: ‘Like love, cheese should be shared,’” Tiffany Regan said before reaching in a refrigerated case for one of the Camas Cheese Co.’s “grab-n-graze” boxes that include an assortment of unique cheeses and cheese pairings, including cured meats, nuts, dried fruit and jam, and are the perfect size for a light picnic lunch.

Inside the cozy cheese shop, the Regans offer a carefully curated assortment of local, regional and international cheeses as well as cured meats, crackers, baguettes, jams, olives, nuts, honey and other delectable items that can help create a party-worthy cheese board.

When new customers enter the shop, the Regans — who have traveled far and wide searching for the most delicious cheeses — try to get a feel for the person’s favorite flavors and types of cheeses before making recommendations.

“We want this to be an inviting experience,” Andy Regan said.

Customers have been craving the shop’s assortment of goat cheeses, cheddars, blue cheeses and goudas, the Regans said, and are finding their way to the new Camas Cheese Co., which had its grand opening, ribbon-cutting with the Downtown Camas Association during the DCA’s July First Friday event, just a few weeks before thousands of visitors packed into downtown Camas for the annual Camas Days celebration in late July.

“We moved here three years ago, and fell in love with Camas,” Andy Regan said.

Being downtown also has its advantages, the Regans said, including the ability to partner with other local Camas businesses to host events such as the July 26 Taste of the Pacific Northwest event that featured premium wine and artisanal cheese pairings from the Camas Cheese Co. and Camas Cellars, a downtown Camas wine bar.

Even before finding the 325-square-foot space on Northeast Fourth Avenue — Camas’ “main street” — where the Camas Cheese Co. would take root, the Regans had been perfecting their business plan and scouring the Pacific Northwest and the world for the types of memorable cheeses and cheese accompaniments that had brought them so much joy during their own travels.

The Regans, who both grew up in Kansas but met in Colorado, moved to Camas three years ago for a work opportunity. Tiffany Regan had experience in the food industry and Andy Regan had a background in sales, so when the couple decided to go into business for themselves, opening a food-related shop — especially a cheese shop — came naturally.

“We realized that our favorite memories all involved a cheese plate, baguette and wine,” Andy Regan said. “And we both love cheese, so we just went for it.”

The end result is a shop that manages to pack a dazzling variety of cut-to-order cheeses and other goodies into one of downtown Camas’ smaller retail spaces. On a recent Monday afternoon — two days before the shop received its weekly, Wednesday morning shipment of new cheeses — the cheese display held dozens of cheeses marked with cards noting the milk type, creamery, region of origin, how long the cheese may have been aged and the cost per pound. Shelves are stocked with everything from “Vampire Slayer,” a garlic cheddar produced by the award-winning Face Rock Creamery on the southern Oregon coast, and goudas — smoked and regular — from Appel Farms in Kent, Washington, to a caciotta fresca cheese with black truffles from Italy and one of the Regans’ personal favorites: a 15-month aged, summer-milk comte cheese from France. The Regans also are on the hunt for sought-after farmstead cheeses, which are cheeses made from milk that comes from animals living on the same farm where the cheese is produced. The process allows cheesemakers to have much greater control over the final product, the Regans explained.

“We’re seeking out farmstead cheeses as often as we can,” Andy Regan said, pointing to cheeses from Ferndale Farmstead, a “seed to cheese” creamery located about 10 miles north of Bellingham in Ferndale, Washington, that prides itself on producing artisanal cheeses using milk from cows raised on the farm eating Ferndale Farmstead crops.

“Ferndale is a cheese mecca,” Andy Regan said, adding that producing a farmstead cheese and having cheesemakers so intimately involved in every step of the cheesemaking process, “really makes a difference in the taste.”

The Regans, who live walking distance from their new shop with their 8-year-old lab-shepherd dog, Cora, have tried to infuse Camas Cheese Co. with their own brand of lighthearted humor, placing googly eyes on some of the cheeses to give the blocks a bit of personality and placing a framed photo of Cora sporting a cheese-block hat above their cheese counter.

“It’s been fun creating something that is 100 percent ours,” Andy Regan said.

“We can get a little nerdy,” Tiffany Regan added. “We’re letting our personalities come through.”

The result is a fun experience that offers something for cheese connoisseurs as well as cheese newbies, who may enjoy the Regans’ enthusiasm for educating customers about how, in the cheese-making world, the type of milk, the animals’ food sources and the aging process can transform simple ingredients — milk, salt, enzymes and a “good bacteria” — into a dazzling array of flavor profiles.

Camas Cheese Co. is located at 231 N.E. Fourth Ave., Camas. The shop is open from noon to 6 p.m. on Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays and is closed Monday and Tuesday. For more information, visit camascheeseco.com, call 360-833-2982, email howdy@camascheeseco.com or find the shop on Instagram and Facebook using the handle @camascheeseco.